Southern Utah University’s Department of Theatre, Dance, and Arts Administration will be opening “The Wolves,” one of two final shows for their 2023-24 season. The production, directed by Lisa Quoresimo, has performances in the Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre on April 11, 15, 19 and 20 at 7:30 p.m. with an additional matinee performance on April 13 at 2 p.m.
“The Wolves” follows a girls’ soccer team as they go through their weekly warmups, allowing audiences to grow fond of the girls through just the conversations they have before each game.
“Imagine you have the opportunity to watch a girls’ soccer practice of 17 year olds through a glass box, and they don’t know that you’re there,” said Annie Needles, who plays #46.
The show has a unique script, mimicking a real-life soccer warmup wherein the players have several overlapping conversations at once.
“You are not going to get everything the first time you come,” said assistant director Dean Rice. “You should come multiple times, or you are not going to hear all the storylines.”
The nature of the script also made for a different rehearsal process. The actors ran the scenes fully improvised in order to learn the beats and intentions of the scene before worrying about the actual words.
Rehearsals also included soccer practices to enable the cast to be as accurate to real soccer players warming up as possible. The cast played soccer for one hour of each three-hour rehearsal as well as scrimmaged on Saturday mornings.
“Whenever we would do the soccer rehearsals or soccer practices, the conversation would break out into multiple conversations,” said Quoresimo. “We’d be standing there saying, ‘That’s it. That’s the play.’”
“The Wolves” will be performed in rep with another show, “Roe.” Audiences can attend one show one night and another show the next. The shows are not related but still work together as a set of rep shows.
“I think it’s interesting because the shows actually relate to one another in a way because we talk about some of the topics in ‘Roe,’” said stage manager Sierra May.
“The Wolves” was produced by SUU only four years ago, also directed by Quoresimo, but was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The remount, featuring an entirely new cast, has been a very different experience for her.
“It’s been so fascinating to me to watch how they’ve developed these characters and the arc of the show in a completely different way than we had four years ago,” said Quoresimo. “It’s still a wild and wonderful ride — it’s just a really different ride.”
A highlight of the show has been that one of the cast members, Rebecca Villalobos, plays the same character in the 2024 remount that her elder sister, Adriana, played in 2020.
“It was really cool for me to be able to get her takes on things, and we did a lot of character development together,” said Rebecca. “She would have ideas that I did not foresee in the lines, and sometimes I would have different takes on things.”
Rebecca has had a love for “The Wolves” since high school and had been excited to see her sister in the show.
“It’s rare to be able to talk to other actors who are actively doing a role you once did, and for it to be your sister is even rarer, but it’s so much fun to be able to discuss a character you both know so well and still have different insights,” said Adriana. “As my cast never got to officially run in 2020, I’m very excited to see the show in all its glory!”
Author: Tessa Cheshire
Photos courtesy of Mary Sue Anderson and Rebecca Villalobos
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